Friday, October 30, 2015

In Hades the philosophers are blind
They wander unaware of their own kind
As each one's contemplating his own mind
Each one a monster that no one can find
Each one believing all he left behind
Are shadows and the sun has merely shined
Too bright and that their eyesight will unwind
And everyone will love what they've divined
And they release them from the chains that bind
Each person to the wall they're sure they've dined
Upon the flesh of truth they merely grind
Their teeth on nothingness that they've defined

With people places things the poets leaven
The truth and that is why they sing in heaven

Thursday, October 29, 2015

I've tried to find adults, but they all fled
From college, work, and high schools -- they're all dead,
Much like the gods of old --
I find but puppy days, demands, and dread--
There's no one left who's bold.

We need to take our sons at age thirteen
Into the terror forests where we'll wean
Them from the sweatened milk
And drum them into men with virtue's mean,
Away from vice's silk.

A ritual for daughters, too, to bring
Them into womanhood -- we need to sing
Of love and due respect,
Responsibility that brings the Spring
Of wisdom to reflect.

And once we've brought adulthood back, we'll find
Behavior problems fade like mist, the mind
Now cosmopolitan
No longer child-deaf and child-blind
Our lives can now begin.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

You can't control yourself without a self --
It's cybernetic self-control -- no elf
Within the brain required, desired, or found --
Emergent network feedback is the ground --
So courage lets you face your fears, stand cool --
A person unafraid shows he's a fool,
As vicious as a coward, both of whom
Will lead the mirror masses to their tomb.

Behold the virtues, products of your choice,
Made possible by your emergent mind
Affecting neural pulses and their flow --
Behold your freedom, love it and rejoice
That you create yourself, unless you find
You don't believe, for freedom means you know.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Depression pulls and pares us from the now
Into the haunted mansions of our past,
The rotten wood, the shades of dead don't last,
Yet they seem always first to mind somehow

Anxiety, our future fear, will bow
Us down beneath its weight and slowly cast
Its shadow -- its cold darkness makes you fast,
To death and drink your sweat from off your brow.

The present must present itself in you
For joyfulness and happiness to live --
Revise your past and future both, rewrite
Your life and author only what is true,
Erasing bends and breaks -- you have to give
Yourself permission to find hope, delight.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

The temples fell, and Venus wanders, worn,
Across the earth in search of worshipers --
Her clothes are torn, neglected -- she endures
By those few who find love in life they've borne.
Her neck and chest, what pearls should adorn,
Are bare and bruised -- she's treated like a curse,
As too much madness is -- the joy that's hers
To give is gone, and we are left forlorn.

But we can bring her joyful madness home,
Back to our hearts, its quickened rhythmic beat
That flush our flesh with blood. Dear Venus gives
If we would just receive. Dig up your loam
And plant her seed and harvest all her wheat --
We and she are starving; joined, though, love lives.

Monday, October 19, 2015

The dragon Fear will keep you in your place --
He'll stare you down with his green eyes
He'll make you feel death is a prize
And make you kneel and feel you're a disgrace --
He'll make you feel his heat before he flies.

A sometimes glance of sunlight seems to wane
One's hope -- why should light ever raze
One's hope? -- and yet, it cannot raise
You off our knees so you can face your pain,
And promise will not put you in a daze.

And in the dark you cannot see the gold
That piles around you in the cave --
You seem intent to stay a slave
And punish anyone who dares be bold --
You'll torch and torture him into his grave.

And then the dragon Fear will grin at you
And compliment you on your sin
And tell you that you're going to win
The prize of loyalty: belief that's true,
But venomous as what drips off his chin.

And you will lash out blindly at your loves
And you will take the steel-tipped spear
And stab the one who is most near --
And you will think your shackles velvet gloves,
And you will cower in the dark in fear.

And then the dragon Fear will cruelly laugh
That you, his captive, killed his foe,
And did it knowing what you know
Since you'd been handed the two-helixed staff --
You joined with fear, and now nothing will grow.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Where Shelley's atheism would find faith
Today, no theist verse would find a home
Outside religious magazines -- a wraith
Of narrowmindedness erects a dome
To make sure spirit-feeling will not roam.

The nyads, dryads do not have a place
To dwell -- we cannot find the spirits' land --
Our poets, editors would find disgrace
Among their peers if life should not be bland
Upon the page as atheists demand.

Heroic gods could scarcely grace the page
In anything but reference, irony -
To dare be earnest, that would but enrage
The village atheist -- he'll make you flee
From his harangues, his every empty plea.

And God the Father, God the King won't reign
Much more than human kings or emperors --
And why would any atheist dare deign
To deem a theme on him should open doors
When they have existential verse on whores?

The fuzzy deist God, the cosmos' voice
That sparked existence just to step aside
Is still too much -- in Him you can't rejoice
Without sly ridicule -- they won't abide
Until you have confessed that God has died.

And that now leaves us with the blankest verse
Of petty observations, with our eyes
Cast down upon the ground to see what's worse
In life and humankind, that but denies
That we are anything but food for flies.

But if you dare to lift your eyes, the glow
Will blind you right before you see the sun,
And seeing beauty you will finally know
What virtue needs, and all the damage done
By failing to aim high to reach the one.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

The Serious Poet has come to town!
He is a man of much renown --
Frivolity will get his frown --
If it's not his, he'll put it down --
The Serious Poet has come to town.

He will declare there's nothing worse
Than any that is not his verse --
"What silliness!" he'll say with terse
And scowling frowns, his voice a hearse
In which true poems must immerse.

His greatness stretches back and back
And since there's nothing he should lack
He knows that he must stay on track
And never let influence crack
The poems of this boring hack.

"Your poem rhymes? Then that should date
It back to sixteen eighty-eight --
We all know Serious Poems state
In anti-rhythms -- no debate.
And this is fun, and we should hate
All fun -- only the dull is great."

The Serious Poet will thus proclaim
That unless you bow to his fame
And make all your work just the same --
All serious, sad, and very tame --
That all you'll ever write is lame.

The Serious Poet has come to town!
He is a man of much renown --
Frivolity will get his frown --
If it's not his, he'll put it down --
The Serious Poet has come to town.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

The patrons are the poet's audience --
To please them is his pleasure -- he is poor
Without them -- words won't come his way -- and hence
He writes with them in mind -- they make him more.

Your audience determines what's your song --
You sing the song of government to pay
Your bills if they would pay -- or you belong
A partisan of people -- they're your clay.

Yet there are those who think they must refuse
To have an audience for whom to write --
They say their art is sullied if they bend
To any will but theirs -- they seek a Muse
Of solitude -- they don't care to delight --
But people die when they cannot depend.

About Me

I am the author of "Diaphysics," a poet, playwright, and interdisciplinary scholar. I am married and have a daughter and two sons. I have a Ph.D. in the Humanities, a M.A. in English, and a B.A. in recombinant gene technology and chemistry.